In Italian theaters and Nexfilx today- Suburra: a Roman western between politics and criminality

Stefano Sollima’s new film, an Italo-French co-production, will be released in Italian theatres and on Netflix in the United States and South America on 14 October.

The Suburra quarter in ancient Rome was the quarter populated by taverns and brothels, where noble senators met with criminals in secret to do business and make money. Two thousand years later, not much seems to have changed in the Italian capital. Politics and criminality continue to do business and the real world is governed by laws drawn up by corrupt politicians, through brokers without scruples in the shadow of an ambivalent Vatican. These were the findings of a recent judicial inquiry by the name of Mafia Capitale, which has now been brought to the big screen by Stefano Sollima’s new film, Suburra at a time when Rome has just seen the resignation of its mayor, and is being plagued by ungovernability and the chaos of the upcoming Jubilee.

Based on the novel of the same name by Giancarlo De Cataldo (who also wrote “Romanzo Criminale”) and Carlo Bonini (the writer of “Acab”, on which the film, also directed by Sollima, is based), Suburra is neither an historic reconstruction nor a faithful account of events, rather the realistic story of a system, a universe, colored by shades of noir and urban western. The year is 2011, a week away from the fall of the government (that of Berlusconi). In a sort of countdown to the Apocalyse announced at the beginning of the film, in a nocturnal Rome flooded by rain, we are introduced to different and apparently unconnected worlds: the political world with the honorable Malgradi (Pierfrancesco Favino), a greedy and depraved PR manager; the world of VIP parties with Sebastiano (Elio Germano), a slimy social climber; the underworld of the coastal area of Rome with Number 8 (Alessandro Borghi, the protagonist of the Italian Oscar candidate Non essere cattivo), the heir to a powerful family that manages the area. Then there’s the ‘Samurai’ (Claudio Amendola), a former member of the Magliana Gang, who seems the most harmless of all but is actually pulling a lot of the strings connecting the various worlds; Manfredi (Adamo Dionisi), the boss of a rowdy cutthroat family of gypsy loan sharks; Viola (Greta Scarano), the drug addicted girlfriend of Number 8, and Sabrina (Giulia Elettra Gorietti), an escort who works in tandem with minors. All interests converge on the plans for a big property speculation, the so-called Waterfront, which would turn Ostia into a new Las Vegas full of hotels, clubs and casinos. In the same week, the Pope steps down (although this actually happened just over a year later).

The portrait of a humanity driven by money and extreme ambition, in which the law of the strongest prevails and there are no heroes. The films takes place between the halls of parliament, rooms of the Vatican, luxury hotels, flashy villas, run-down suburbs with fierce executions, drugs, parties, and protests. There’s a lot going on in Suburra, perhaps too much for just two hours of film. The TV series that will be based on it and has already been announced (comprising 10 episodes produced by Netflix, currently in development) will make much better use of so much material. The film by Sollima, who is a well-established director these days since his successful TV series based on Romanzo criminale and Gomorra, is nonetheless a flawless piece, blunt in style, without rhetoric or moralism, which features outstanding actors and has a certain ‘realism of genre’ about it that Italian production (in particular Riccardo Tozzi’s production company Cattleya) relies on a lot, ever since Romanzo criminale directed by Michele Placido ten years ago, and which is proving to be highly exportable.

Co-produced by Italy and France (Cattleya, Rai Cinema, La Chauve Souris) on a budget of €7 million, Suburra will be released in cinemas on 14 October (by 01 Distribution in 500 copies) and will be simultaneously released on Netflix in the United States and South America. The film, which has already been sold in 14 countries around the world (international sales by Indie Sales), will open the screenings at the MIA, the International Audiovisual market, which will be held from 16 to 20 October during the Rome Film Fest.

By Vittoria Scarpa for Cineuropa

Comments

7 Days - 7 Women: Interview with Actress Sabrina Impacciatore

Photo by Rossella Vetrano On Day 6 of our series, 7 Days - 7 Women, in which we are profiling seven strong, talented women working as filmmakers, writers or visual artists, we talk with actress Sabrina Impacciatore about the diversity of her roles. Whether she's playing a devoted mother trying to protect her child, Jesus Christ's "Veronica" in Mel Gibson's controversial film, "Passion of the Christ" or a young woman coming of age, Impacciatore escapes into the life and mind of each character she takes on, sometimes so deeply that she believes she is actually them. It's a fine line between reality and fiction, but she treads it carefully and anyone watching her performance benefits from her emotional connection to the character that she becomes. I spoke with Impacciatore at the 2010 Open Roads: New Italian Film series in New York City. We talked about her lifelong dream of becoming an actress. She also gave me some insight into the diff

Michelangelo Frammartino's "Il buco" — Unearthing our past

When a team of speleologists descended 700 meters into the Bifurto Abyss in Cosenza, Calabria, in 1961, they discovered that the underground caverns were the third deepest in the world and the deepest in Europe. Italian filmmaker Michelangelo Frammartino retraces that mission six decades later with a cast of locals and their livestock in his latest documentary, “Il buco” (“The Hole”). Inspiration for the film came while he was on location shooting his 2007 documentary, “Le quattro volte” (“Four Times”). Officials in the Pollino mountains, which stretch between Calabria and Basilicata, showed him what appeared to be just another sinkhole. Frammartino failed to understand their enthusiasm until they tossed a large stone into the void. It disappeared without making a sound. He was so overcome by the experience and the eerie landscape, he was haunted for years, compelling him to make his current film, one of many rooted in nature. “I was born in Milan, but my family is from Calabria. My pa

A Conversation with Taylor Taglianetti, Founder of NOIAFT

A new platform has recently been launched that promotes the work of Italian Americans in film and television. The brains behind the initiative is a young, passionate woman who is taking the support that she received early on in her journey and paying it forward. With origins in Basilicata and Campania , Taylor Taglianetti is a proud Italian American from Brooklyn, New York. She is currently a senior at NYU Tisch School of the Arts, graduating in January 2020. She is majoring in Film and Television and minoring in the Business of Entertainment, Media and Technology. Taglianetti aspires to be a feature film producer and bring great stories to the big screen. In addition to running NOIAFT, she is currently a Development Intern with Silver Pictures, the production company that produced the Lethal Weapon and The Matrix series. Last summer, she was a development intern with Maven Pictures, the Academy-Award winning production company behind Still Alice and The Kids Are All Right .

Anna Foglietta: Actress and Activist with Old School Elegance

One look at actress Anna Foglietta in her any of her roles, and the Golden Age of Italian cinema comes to mind. Among Italy’s most sought-after actresses today, Foglietta brings to the table a classic eloquence of yesterday while representing Italy’s modern woman. Born in Rome in 1979, Foglietta began her career in 2005 with a role in the RAI television series La squadra . Her character Agent Anna De Luca had a two-year run on the series as she was transitioning to cinema with Paolo Virzì’s 2006 ensemble project 4-4-2- Il gioco più bello del mondo . Since then, she has become one of Italy’s most diverse actresses, transforming herself into interesting, layered characters for comedies and dramas alike. Aside from a small part in Anton Corbijn’s 2010 film The American starring George Clooney, Foglietta’s work began reaching mainstream American audiences in 2015. As Elisa in Edoardo Leo’s 2015 comedy Noi e la Giulia , Foglietta showed her funny side playing a goofball pregn

A Conversation With the Man Who Played Pasolini's Christ

There have been countless cinematic interpretations of the books of the Bible, but few have stood the test of time. One that qualifies as a classic is Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 1964 “Il Vangolo secondo Matteo” (The Gospel According to St. Matthew). Considered by the Vatican to be among the best film adaptations of one of the Gospels, Pasolini’s 1964 film was shot in the regions of Calabria, Puglia and Basilicata. In an interview with RAI television while on location in Matera, Pasolini talked about the reasons for shooting there. “I chose two or three places in Basilicata. One is Barile, a town of Albanians. I needed a place for Bethlehem. Another location is Matera because it reminded me of Jerusalem,” he explained. Pasolini’s interpretation of St. Matthews’s Gospel is pure, with no added commentary. He said that he followed the Gospel word for word without adding a single syllable. He explained in the interview that his idea to make the film happened by coincidence. “In October of 19

Italian Cinema Today

Search This Blog